"White liberals dumb themselves down when they speak to black people, a new study contends."

WaPo reports on a new study by Cydney Dupree, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management, and Susan Fiske, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton:

You have recently joined a book club.

Before each meeting, one member of the literary collective sends an email to the club secretary offering a few thoughts on the assigned text. This month, it’s your turn to compose the brief review.

A new study suggests that the words you use may depend on whether the club secretary’s name is Emily (“a stereotypically White name,” as the study says) or Lakisha (“a stereotypically Black name”). If you’re a white liberal writing to Emily, you might use words like “melancholy” or “euphoric” to describe the mood of the book, whereas you might trade these terms out for the simpler “sad” or “happy” if you’re corresponding with Lakisha.

But if you’re a white conservative, your diction won’t depend on the presumed race of your interlocutor....

The social psychologists call what liberals do a "competence downshift."

“White liberals may unwittingly draw on negative stereotypes, dumbing themselves down in a likely well-meaning, ‘folksy,’ but ultimately patronizing, attempt to connect with the outgroup,” argues the paper, titled “Self-Presentation in Interracial Settings: The Competence Downshift by White Liberals.”...

“It’s somewhat counterintuitive,” said Dupree, who is the lead author and whose research was supported by the National Science Foundation as well as by Princeton’s Joint Degree Program in Social Policy. “The idea that people who are most well-intentioned toward racial minorities, the people actually showing up and wanting to forge these connections, they’re the ones who seem to be drawing on stereotypes to do so.”

Was there a scientific study done that determined that liberals are more "well-intentioned" than conservatives? I mean, it wouldn't be "counterintuitive" if you abandoned the prejudgment about who means well and who does not. And what does it really mean to say people have good intentions? When you show up to help, you're displaying the belief that help is needed. When you stand back, it might not be because you don't care. It could be that you think other people are able to handle their own life.

[W]hite liberals are “concerned about appearing racist”... Dupree said. In their role as “impression managers,” white liberals may even take on the negative stereotypes they harbor toward people of other races, in an effort, as the paper puts it, to “get on their level.”

Their conservative counterparts, meanwhile, appear not to employ these stereotypes in the same way, as Dupree said, because, “We know empirically that white conservatives are less likely to be interested in getting along with racial minorities.”...

We know empirically.... I know "empirically" — or is it intuitively? — not to trust studies by social psychologists, but I must say that when the results make liberals look bad, I'm more likely to believe that the social psychologists are onto something and to suspect that they are framing the results as well as they can to make liberals look better than conservatives: Liberals are racists because they care and they're trying so hard to make a connection and surely if conservatives weren't so awful they'd be just as racist.